57-year-old mark david chapman is up for parole for the seventh time and could face a parole board autos soon as tuesday. his last quest for freedom was denied two years ago. he's currently serving a sentence of 20 years to life for gunning down john lennon in 1980. i'll be back at the top of hour with much more news. keep it here on cnn. "your bottom line" starts right now. president obama attacks success, therefore, under president obama we have less success. >> we don't need someone who's a pioneer in offshore or outsourcing. >> americans don't need sound bites, they need job. what if i told you neither president obama nor governor romney can create a single job quickly. the economy is adding jobs but not enough. nearly 13 million americans are still looking for work. and many frustrated americans have simply given up, with those either employed or actively looking hitting a 30-year low. you are demanding answers but your politicians are too busy

yelling at each other to hear you. good morning, i'm christine romans. politicians create sound bites. these people create jobs. meet four people with the power to hire. they employ anyere from 9 to 300 workers each. barry sloan, ceo of new tech. rapel is founder of aerial design and build, a new york city contractor. jeffrey is president of flex line, a manufacturer. don peebles is scharm and ceo of peebles corporation, a real estate developer. raise your hand if you've created a job any time, let's say, in the last year? there you go. people who are actually creating jobs. why? why did you have to create a job? >> as we provide funds to small businesses, they create jobs, we've also increased our work force by 12% over the last year. >> 12% over the last year. so that would sort of defy what we're seeing more broadly in the economy really. you've been hiring people, i know, because you're actually -- you're getting contracts. your margins are tight. >> margins are tight.

>> but you hire people, you say, before you actually get the business because you're anticipating demand. >> absolutely. we've tripled our work force over the last one year. >> tripled your work force? >> tripled. hire one person every two months. i think we need to hire an extra employee. >> you are very careful to watch costs. customers are penny pinching. >> sometimes you have four to five contracts bidding on one project. they typically go for the lowest bidder. >> jeff, you're a manufacturer, you're already seeing europe and -- or europe and china slowing on your business. you can feel it. >> correct. it started about six to eight weeks ago. we can certainly sense there's been a change in our economic underpinnings. >> what do you do differently? how do you watch the global economy and worry about your own business? >> well, you know, it's easy to tell when your orders go down. we're -- as a manufacturer we're primarily driven exclusively by

demand. we hire based -- you know, if it's manufacturing based, it's purely demand driven. if demand goes down, there's no hiring. >> don, real estate, a lot of people have been saying is bottoming, commercial real estate and the housing market in general. do you see a bottom? >> yeah, i do. i think the housing market and throughout the country is pretty much bottomed out. we're seeing tremendous recovery, say, in new york city, all sectors. especially super, super high end. we have apartments in new york city routinely selling for over 10,000 a square foot, which is an absurd amount of money. also what we've seen in our businesses is hospitality is growing. we're seeing occupancy going up higher in hotels, customers spending more money while there on food and beverage and other activities in the hotel. and we also are looking at much more deal flow in our major markets that we operate in, but also cities like detroit. we're hiring people to look at more of these deals because we now belief these deals are going to lead to new development and new construction, which i think will help pull the economy up a

bit more, to have new construction activity start taking place. we're seeing that in markets that we wouldn't have thought of before. again, such as a detroit, a washington, d.c., and now miami. we're looking at new construction in mymy which three years ago was basically a cemetery. >> do politicians create jobs or people who run businesses create jobs? >> the differences between my hiring a welder based on my demand and the economic impact of me hiring a welder, versus the local town hiring a teacher is phenomenal. because not just the multiplier effect, but the creation of wealth, the creation of additional revenue, versus the consumption of it. >> you're saying the economic benefit of you hiring a welder is bigger than the economic benefit of a new teacher job being created? >> correct. >> i think teachers would argue about that. >> teachers should argue with me about it. if you're unhappy and

uncomfortable with teacher, say bureaucrat. if you're unhappy with that -- you pick, but the bottom line is, how many people must support that one government hire as opposed to growing the economic pie. >> i think what you're saying is that it's growing organically. basically it's economic circumstances that dictate you creating a job as opposed to -- there could be stagnate economic activity and the government can create a job. i don't think politicians create jobs at all. i'm a big believerhe government can create an environment for us to do business. and the best way they can create an environment is just give us some basic regulations, be consistent about the regulations, what the rules of the game are, and get out of our way and let us do business. >> can someone here point to me, any of you, can you point to me a tax or regulation that has prevented you from hiring a worker. >> yes. actually right now we're looking at a deal right now, and the biggest stumbling block is that we have -- it's a major site to

develop. the biggest stumbling block is they want us to close before the end of the year. if we do this project, there will be a couple hundred jobs created. >> the government wants you to close by the end of the year? >> not the government, the seller of the property. the reason is because they're convinced capital gains are going to go up next year. so, they feel they're going to -- their taxes are going to go up ten points. instead of 15%, they see capital gains being 25%. or worse. so, they -- that uncertainty has made it a deal-breaker. they've taken the position that they will keep the property themselves and develop it themselves as opposed to selling it to us. they would develop it into a use that would create very few jobs because it would be a residential building as opposed to hotel. >> do you believe there are taxes and regulations that prevent people from hiring? >> every single day. i'm informed of another one.

whether it's the local sewer authority promulgating regulations for waste water that exceeds drinking water standard or the uncertainty created around taxes. you can't invest in a project that -- or in a piece of equipment that has a three and five-year economic life if you don't know what the taxes are. >> more with my panel of job creators coming up next. what's one thing washington can do to improve conditions for your company? you say do nothing? >> fix the tax code in terms of letting us know what it's supposed to be over the next two years and then take a breath. wow. it's the honey, it makes it taste so... well, would you look at the time... what's the rush? be happy. be healthy. is tt your phone bill? sure is. let's see if we can go inside and save you some money on your plan. you ready? sounds great! can you tell them about straight talk? sure. with straight talk at walmart you get unlimited talk, text and data for only $45 a month. but do i get the same coverage? oh yeah. it's on america's best networks.

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we're talking about regulation. obama care, as republicans call it, even the white house sometimes calls it obama care, by the way, the affordable care act. is health care reform preventing anybody from hiring right now? >> yeah, no question. there's nothing wrong with obama care, just like there's nothing wrong with bush tax cuts. it's the president's key feature in his legislation. with the affordable health care act, it's concerning to a lot of small businesses. businesses that are right at the break point of 50 employees. they don't want to go over it for fear they're going to have additional compliance. >> so, they're holding back on growing because they don't want to go -- they don't want to trigger -- after 50 employees, you have to provide health insurance. >> that's correct. >> but, look, i think we're a great country, a nation of individuals, and also a nation that is innovative. so, we should spend some of our -- a significant amount of resourcespreserving human life. as a business person, from day one, i provided health care to

our employees because it's impossible for me to look any of my employees in the eye and if they have a sick child or a sick parent or a sick spouse, and let them suffer, so either we're going to pay for it as a company or we're going to provide a system that allows them to have health care. businesses -- our role here is not just to make money. our role here is to build businesses, help build this nation and make it a greater nation. that means taking care of our employees. >> we have nine employees and we provide health care. we don't have to but we do. the employees that help our business grow, you know, they're out in the field. >> is it -- i hear so many about the skills gap, people still looking for just the right level -- the right worker for the right job. does health care help you retain that worker? >> i think so. i think they're getting benefits by working with us, so -- >> jeff, i have a feeling you are not really a fan of this legislation. >> well, you know, i am a fan of health insurance. i pay for my employees 100%. i pay for their families 100%,

no contribution. >> really? >> correct. >> do you have any job openings at the moment? >> i do. >> because i'm -- >> how are your skills? >> i wouldn't be able to help you in the metal fabrication. >> i also believe health care should be a right. that having been said, i can tell you for the vast majority of very small businesses that don't provide health insurance, they -- the mandates will be difficult for them. i can also assure you that the cost control mechanisms built into affordable health care act are such that your employees will be spending a great deal more time getting health care-related services. the way the bureaucracy will lower costs is by erecting arbitrary barriers to care. your employees will be out of the office a lot longer. and that is going to be a huge productivity drain. >> solving a problem doesn't happen overnight. we obviously can all admit

health care is a problem in this country. it takes too much money. and too few people are covered. we need to solve that problem. somebody has to do something. what i think the president did is a good start. is it perfect? no. does it need work? yes. it's a work in progress. what we should be doing, our politicians should be doing, saying, this is a given. we're doing this. so let's make it better. let's make it work better. how do we reform it and refine it. >> you've advised the white house before on financial matters. have you talked to -- has there been a lot of outreach to business, do you think, about how to make this work for business in america? >> no. i think that they're probably -- there was one of the pitfalls, one of the shortcomings of this legislation. i think they could have involved more businesses. i understand the president's goal, which was to get something done and get it implemented. if he had continued to have a broad dialogue with a lot of constituencies, it would never get done and we'd still be talking about it as we have since hillary clinton started

working on it a couple decades ago. i think the white house did the right thing by getting something going, but i think it needs refined. i would like to see them more open and receptive to refinement. >> i'm sorry. >> i'm sorry. >> i'm afraid the bill, as it stands, is a monster that will, in fact, consume enormous amounts of capital without delivering any health benefits. do you know the bill includes billions of dollars for the health and human services secretary to invest in emerging health care tecologies? that can't end well. >> there's a lot of things that are in this bill, but this bill is the law of the land. the question i'm asking is, has anyone here not hired anyone because they're afraid of health care reform? i don't think any of you have not hired someone because of this. >> but we're an anomaly. in my 100,000 business customer portfolio, we're going to lose a lot of businesses. there's restaurants, there's doctors leaving the profession because now the government is

going to decide what care you get, what price it is and what the rules are. small businesses are not going to be able to afford it. so, it's a choice. i chose to pay my employees' health care because i want the best employees. but if there's a smaller employee and they can't afford it, that's their choice. it's a free market. >> great, great conversation. i appreciate it from all of you. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> the stalemate in washington is hurting the recovery, america's infrastructure, schools and systems need an overhaul but your elected officials don't seem interested in dealing with our long-term crisis. plus, five years after the credit crunch began, the middle class is still struggling. >> two thing you're not supposed to talk about is religion and politics. >> so how often do you break the rules? >> about every day. zoo we'll break the rules and see how america looks from a diner in iowa. [ pilot ] now when you build an aircraft,

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five years after the credit crunch began, the middle class is stig struggling. the recession wiped out two decades of accumulated wealth. a piece of the american dream lost value for them. home values have started to inch back up again, but many experts expect a slow recovery. the economy is adding jobs but not enough. nearly 13 million americans are still out of work. and when americans lose their jobs, they don't have enough saved to get by. according to the latest numbers from bankrate.com, more than one-fifth of americans don't have enough savings to cover three months of expenses. 28% say they have no emergency savings at all.

americans lucky enough to have jobs, well, they aren't seeing their paychecks grow. the middle class will decide this presidential election. the latest look at our economy shows 41% of you think the economy is stable. 19% of you say it's starting to recover. but 39% of you say the economy is getting worse. polls aside, i traveled to the heartland to find out what america looks like from a diner in my home state of iowa. >> do you think the middle class is growing today? do you think the middle class is in an okay position? >> i think they're getting better. but, you know, three years ago, we were a lot busines busier ea the year. >> what does it mean to be middle class in the midwest, do you think? >> probably 50,000 to $150,000 a year. >> having a job and -- >> having a job, getting yourself stabilized. >> when you talk about iowa, you need to talk about corn, of course. americans consume nearly 43

pounds of corn every year on average. that's seven pounds of sweet corn and nearly 36 pounds of high fructose corn syrup. the u.s. produces 38% of the world's corn. no state produces more than iowa. but the drought that's destroying crops across the u.s. is hitting that state hard. farmers are watching their crops shrivel in the fields but they say there's always next year. >> how many years did you farm? >> all my life. >> all your life. so, you've seen some beautiful crops and you've seen some really terrible crops? >> this is one of the years it was a bad crop. >> when you drive by those fields, what do you think? >> it looks bad. and every day it's getting worse. >> a lot of these guys are just going to go on for the next year, you know? you kind of take the hit this year and -- >> oh, yeah. >> got to keep going. >> we've seen some good economies and some bad economies over the years. >> yeah. went through good times, bad

times. but farming is a great life. >> that retired farmer you just saw 92 years old lived through the droughts of 1936, 1956, 1988, he says this one may be worse but this time 90% of the farmers have crop insurance so they won't get rich this year but they won't go broke either. we got a lot more reporting on the drought on our blog. if you want to see how it will affect food prices and reigniting a debate over ethanol policies, go to cnn.com/yourbottomline. the infrastructure you depend on badly needed overhaul but your elected officials don't seem interested in dealing with our long-term problems. we'll talk to a financial crisis expert with an unusual solution.

gridlock in washington is standing in the way of a strong recovery, and our elected officials are not dealing with long-term issues like infrastructure, health care, education. financial crisis expert ken rogoff says the situation is getting worse, but he may have a solution -- teach politicians to play chess. >> i'm ken rogoff. i'm a professor of economics at harvard university. i work on financial crises. i have a wonderful wife and two children. i used to be a professional chess player in my youth. i'm still an international grandmaster at chess. it helps me a little bit in economics. >> well, someone described me once trying to solve a financial crisis as you're trying to play chess blindfolded against someone else who is better than you, and then the chess board is moving like this, you know, and you're switching positions all the time.

>> there are certain things life negotiation, where like other sports analogies, chess teaches you to think what the other person's thinking. >> oh! >> no, no, it's not bad. >> no? >> it's not bad. >> let's talk about right now, trying to solve the financial crisis. sometimes you're making a move out of desperation just to stay in the game, and sometimes you're making a move for strategy. >> sometimes that's like what you call a force move. if you don't do this, it's check-mate, it's over. in the heat of the financial crisis, when there were things that just had to be done. the banking system's falling apart. it's clear you have to back the banks to some extent. >> that's a force move. >> monetary policy has to loosen up. in some ways, if you look at america today, you know, we don't just need to react to the immediate force move. you can't do that again and again and again. we need a longer-term, strategic vision. >> how do you feel right now

about the gathering storm, what we're seeing right now in the economy? what is your experience of financial crises telling you about how serious this moment is? >> the good news is that today's laters, tomorrow's market participants, everybody just saw it, most of them lived through it, they don't need to be told again what can happen. >> right. >> the bad news is we are at a precarious moment where growth is most likely to be slower, and at the same time, we hope it won't be a collapse. >> right. >> but it's a very risky move with what's going on in europe. greece will likely eventually fall out of the euro. >> you think so, they'll be out? >> eventually, absolutely. and they don't really have a plan. >> something you didn't know about ken rogoff, his international chess grandmaster. wow. think you have a better solution than ken rogoff to fix our long-term economic problems? i want to hear from you on facebook and twitter. @cnnbottomline o or @christer